US President Joe Biden highlighted this Saturday the “right to dignity and self-determination” of the Palestinians and condemned the Islamist group Hamas, during a telephone conversation with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
“Hamas does not defend the right of the Palestinian people to dignity and self-determination,” Biden told Mahmoud Abbas, according to a White House statement released today about the conversation between the two leaders.
In the same phone call, the US president also pledged to provide his “full support” to the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, launched a surprise attack on Israeli territory on October 7, which it called operation “Al-Aqsa Storm”, with the launch of thousands of rockets and the incursion of armed fighters by land, sea and air.
In response, Israel bombed several Hamas facilities in the Gaza Strip from the air, in an operation it called “Iron Swords.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel is “at war” with Hamas, which, he recalled, was internationally classified as a terrorist organization.
Israel, which has imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip and has cut off the supply of water, fuel and electricity, has so far confirmed 1,400 dead and more than 3,000 injured since the start of the Hamas offensive, supported by Hezbollah. Lebanese and the Palestinian branch of Islamic Jihad.
On the Palestinian side, the Ministry of Health confirmed today that, in Gaza, Israeli retaliation attacks left at least 2,215 dead and 8,714 injured and that there were also 47 dead in the West Bank, as well as around 600 injured.
According to Israeli army spokesman Richard Hecht, around 1,200 Hamas fighters were also killed during clashes with security forces on Israeli territory.
Source: TSF
